Avuxi secures investment and advisers as web travel maps evolve

A former-senior executive at Wotif has invested in mapping tech provider Avuxi, as the startup looks to take its TopPlace platform "to the next level".

Sam Friend, chief financial officer and chief operating officer at the online travel agency until it went public in the mid-2000s, has backed the company along with the co-founder of housing metasearch brand Nestoria, Ed Freyfogle.

Terms of the investment in the company have not been disclosed.

Both will also join as "active advisors".

Tech investor Lance Johnson and Wahanda co-founder Salim Mitha have also participated in the round.

The platform works by aggregating data from more than 60 sources about a location and its uses to determine which areas are the most relevant for certain topics, such as hotel searches.

Kayak and eDreams are two of Avuxi's early high-profile customers.

The company says:

"So far we have operated in a 'below the radar' mode. Not many people have heard about us. However, as a company we’ve recently arrived at the point where we are ready to scale up."

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Friend says that during his tenure at Wotif, conversion rates were in the 5%-6% range.

"Conversion rates on average are up 5% in A/B tests by customers using TopPlace. The hypothesis: users are booking more because they are finding all the information they need about hotel location on the one page rather than going to other sites like Google and TripAdvisor and then never returning."